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Review: Bad Words

Guy Trilby (Jason Bateman) admits he doesn’t always think things
through before acting on them. That is a little obvious to the audience as he
preps himself to take the stage opposite dozens of children to compete in a
spelling bee. The reaction to a 40 year-old man taking place in a children’s competition
is naturally a harsh one and, after Guy wins the trophy, he must run to escape
with his head.

This is the third such bee that Guy has won on his course to the Golden
Quills Spelling Bee finals in Los Angeles. The beat reporter (Kathryn Hahn)
following Guy around on his trail of hurt feelings has a great number of
questions about why Guy is doing all of this, but he isn’t saying. One thing is
for sure, the man is a veritable terminator when it comes to picking out
someone’s biggest insecurity and then pouncing on it.

He’s made a lot of enemies along his way to the finals, including Drs.
Deagan and Bowman (Allison Janney and Philip Baker Hall) but despite his best
efforts he may have found a friend anyway. One of the younger contestants, Chaitanya
Chopra (Rohan Chand), tags along with Guy to eat chili dogs, put crustaceans where they
shouldn’t be, and paying a hooker to show off her goods.

It goes without saying that Guy is an asshole, but much like Billy Bob
Thornton in Bad Santa, our relatively
filthy protagonist isn’t a bad guy at heart, though he does swear like one. Some
would question whether or not Guy’s motives really do justify his questionable
antics, yet when everything is revealed during the third act, some might feel
differently. It may make audiences feel bad to laugh, but it was almost
impossible not to as Bad Words rolls
along.

Most of the laughs in Andrew Dodge's script come from material raunchy and offensive, but all of it would fall flat without
Jason Bateman’s effortless wit. Bateman has played a lot of the straight men to
showier co-stars in Arrested Development,
Horrible Bosses and Identity Theft, so when given the chance
to get a little wild, he excels.

If the star of the show weren’t quite busy enough in front of the
camera, he made his directing debut behind it as well. Bateman has a good eye
for the camera, including some popping montages set to the Beastie Boys as he
and acting newcomer Rohan Chand. That Chand is so fresh-faced and innocent looking almost makes you want to turn away when Bateman includes him in something off-kilter. Almost.

Bad Words is an fresh debut from Jason Bateman, and as often as I laughed during this romp, I look forward to his next effort.

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